al-Qaeda's Guide to US Intelligence

Muhammad Khalil al-Hakaymah of the Egyptian-based al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, a group which also operates out of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region with its al-Qaeda ally, has written a 152-page book which appears to be intended to serve as a Jihadist’s instructional guide to the United States’ intelligence community. The document focuses on the perceived American intelligence limitations and shortcomings and appears an attempt to dispell any perception that the CIA, NSA, and FBI are comprised of ten-feet-tall invisible men. Circulated in its English translation through jihadist websites and made available at ThreatsWatch, the thrust of the book is clear from its title.

The Manhattan raid led to a radical change in the perception of American Security.

After the northern half of the continent had been isolated from the rest of the world and its threats by two oceans, it now came from inside. The surprise hit the symbols of American power in its economic and security dimensions. The surprise changed the features of the most important financial center in the world.

Moreover, it exposed to the world the myth of delusion called “NSA – CIA – FBI.”

They used to say that “if a mouse entered America or came out of it, you should be able to find a report about it in the archives of the American intelligence services.”

The American intelligence lost this round against al-Qaeda intelligence.

Of note, among the eight chapters, one is dedicated fully to how US Intelligence recruits foreign agents and another purely to signals intelligence and electronic surveillance. The document goes to some length to detail what the intelligence community can and cannot do legally under US law.

Hakamayah states that “the CIA had special campaigns to recruit hundreds of journalists, who kept their journalistic jobs, but they became paid agents for the CIA.” Yet, he cherry-picks various US media sources to support his assertion that the media is full of CIA disinformation operatives while at the same time citing other reports as apparently credible sources of information on CIA/NSA capabilities. The author also goes to great lengths to describe the CIA as being governed by the whims of "Right Wing" think tanks - even though the CIA has been often criticized as being predominantly staffed by people who hold a left-leaning world view.

The document also makes considerable efforts to describe the CIA, NSA and FBI as corrupt and sinister organizations, complete with a section dedicated to “CIA massacres,” including “The Massacre at Mazar-e-Sharif Fort in 2001 in Afghanistan.” While it is possibly one of the most detailed publicly known al-Qaeda accounts of US intelligence, at many points, The Myth of Delusion also reads like a Conspiracy Theorist’s Intelligence Bible.

1 Comment

The fortunes of the various state intelligence communities ebbs and flows with time. The much vaulted Mossad is currently in the doldrums. In their early days they ruled mainly because many of their operatives were of Yemeni descent and were more Arabic than Hebrew and could easily infiltrate subversive groups. Nowadays, the Mossad relies on paid informers----a less desirable way of acquiring intelligence and fraught with problems. The same goes for the US intelligence operations----relying on outside sources----not always the most accurate.